We’re exhausted! It’s been a really tough weekend!

It started at Adrian’s yesterday, with lunch. Then off to the duck farm open day, for a tour of the farm, followed by aperitifs. A quick trip back to Adrian’s to feed the dogs, then out to the salle des fêtes for dinner, courtesy of said farm. The starters were a meal in themselves; huge quantities of foie gras, rillettes and other duck produce, followed by duck confit and beans, then dessert, coffee and armagnac. Of course, we needed all that to be able to cope with the journey home, in the dark, through the fog.

This morning saw us heading into Nogaro for the cycle club AGM; I’ve been to one French AGM before and hoped that the way it was run didn’t set the pattern, but unfortunately it did! Before the start, everyone was given an agenda booklet containing the details of how many rode the weekly club run every week for the last year, who rode which non-club event throughout the year, who went on the cycling holidays organised by the club, what the average attendances were for every event and, of course, the accounts. This booklet was then used as a script for the meeting, which lasted a full 2 hours (though I think I may have missed a bit when I fell asleep!) Afterwards, as a reward(?), aperitifs were served and we repaired to a local restaurant for a wonderful, four course lunch, plus the inevitable wine, coffee and gallons of armagnac.

We finished lunch just in time to pick Kieran up and go to our neighbours’, who’d invited us to dinner; roast chicken and pork, with all the traditional English trimmings and followed by chocolate pudding, cream and ice cream. I think we understand how those “foie gras” ducks feel now! We must have put on half a stone each this weekend; I think it’s bread and soup for the rest of the week till we recover:-)

The bad news is that it’s the patchwork club AGM tomorrow – oh joy!